I lit a cigarette and cut past burrito row - smells of rancid fat, rotten salsas, burnt meats - past the fat naco that chewed on a toothpick, he apathetically checking out the intense gringo strutting without fear or hesitation through mean, dusty streets, up to a hamburger restaurant just around the corner.

The small hamburger joint teetered on the cliff of a canal that brimmed with stagnant water - garbage and yellow turds floated dreamily in the gawdamn bright Juarez sunlight.

There were no customers as I entered the cafe, a row of six mix-matched tables and chairs scattered on red-tiled floor. On one wall was an immense, amateurish mural depicting a demented, nostalgic memory of Michoacan - or damn near it. The jukebox wailed ranchero music as the smells from the kitchen battled with the ever-lingering stink from the canal.

Hector strode out from back all handsome and shit and gave me the glad hand.

"Glad you made it!" He smiled and I assured him I hadn't let him down, yet. He stated that he wanted to get a room at the Hotel Rex across the street, coyly giving me a lascivious wink. I said sure as a small family entered the cafe and took a table.

I sat, too, at my own table in the back corner, and ordered the specialty of the house - a gigantic hamburger with all the trimmings and a Pepsi for just a buck.

I thought it was cute as I sat there, the way Hector would asked me for advice on how to wait on the family properly - Hector had recently acquired the job and wanted to impress, I guess. As the family sat and ate, I chomped on my own burger - swatting flies as Hector counted out his till for the day. His replacement arrived and off we jetted across to Hotel Rex.

Elbowing our way through clomping hookers that blocked the entrance, we paid the fat stinkbomb behind the reception grate the one hundred pesos for a room - he winking at me with his one good eye, obviously thinking we fags or something and going to use the room as our own personal passion pit. I mean, really! The nerve!

Hector and I shot up the wooden stairs to the second floor - my Knight telling me to "Wait a minute" as he steps to a green door and quickly raps with his knuckles.

Quien es?

Soy Hector!

The door is opened by a scrawny kid with a wild mane of hair and skin a pallor of someone who hadn't seen the sun in years. The young junky stares at me blankly and in mute hostility - his eyes all twinkly and shit, but invites Hector inside as I must wait in the hall like some commoner.

A minute passes and Hector walks out and we retire to our room on the third floor. Jingle of key, open thin wood door to a ratty room of old, dark wood. Sagging bed, foul smelling linens, and the walls covered in graffiti. We both take no time in laying out three lines of coke onto the bureau that is pock-marked with hundreds of cigarette burns.

Snoooooort! Snnnniff! Woooop!!

We both cut out into the streets on a mission, by God - first place we hit was the Bar El Durado. Dark joint, cute bartender. Hector explains that I am interested in renting an apartment.

"Of course, senor." The bartender smiles, wiping the counter in front of me with a dirty rag. "Chuey!!"

Chuey slinks out of the darkness - a bent, shriveled old thing in black pants, dirty, white shirt, and bow tie. He slicks his black hair back on his shiny, bulbous head with one hand as he gestures to a spiral staircase with another, "If you'd follow me."

Up the spiral staircase to a long, musty hall lined on both sides with a row of doors. We are in a whore house.

"Where's the apartment?" I ask.

He opens the last door in the hall. It is simply a large bed covered in red, silkish blankets with black tassels. The room smelled of clorox and cunt. An end table with equally queer lamp and above the bed, a huge poster of the Virgin of Guadalupe with a scowl that wouldn't quit. There was no bathroom, no kitchen.

"A nice room. Only $200 a month, senor." The creep hisses.

A fucking room in a whore house? Are you kidding me? I can picture myself attempting to write or read or enjoy television with the sound of hookers fucking all around me.

"I'm going to check out one more place and then I'll let you know." I smiled.

Out on the street, I scold Hector about this selection. He shrugs and we move on.

Next to the Bar El Paso was a gated door that led down a dank hall to hidden apartments. I peered in, but all I could see were rusted gas tanks and dented trash cans.

"You know how we can get in here?" I ask, pulling out a smoke and handing it to him. "I want to talk to the landlady."

"I live here. " He says.

"Good!" I grin. "You can open the gate for us, then!"

"I don't have my key."

"Well, how the fuck do you expect to get into your apartment?" I say.

"You Americans" He shakes his head. "Always theenking you so smart."

The hottie puts his face up to the bars of the gate and yells into the darkness, "Bigote!!! Bigote!!!!!"

I stood there, glancing over at Hector, confused at why this kid was yelling 'moustache' in Spanish. Well, so much for us smart Americans, as this old fucker with the biggest Pancho Villa moustache in all of Latin America comes shuffling out of the gloom. Bigote.

Unlocking the gate, Bigote and the hustler exchange words and Hector and I am escorted into the back. Not bad - patio surrounded by five or six adobe-style apartments. Unfortunately, the landlady was nary to be seen as as luck would have it, Bigote explains she has been missing for a few weeks. I inquire on the rent and they both state $80 a month. I peek my head into Bigote's trap and a good sized room with bathroom and adjacent kitchen. Bigote gives me the landlady's cell-number and Hector and I high-tail it out of there.

Hector and I returned to the hotel, did a couple of lines, sucked each other off, did another line after that - Hector had been badgering me to move back across the border to Mexico for some time. I seriously really want to - damn the death toll. We all die, right? Who wants to live forever? I've met nothing but self-important assholes in El Paso (No big shock, there - it's El Paso, people - the shittiest city with the shittiest citizens in the world - been proven right time and time again since 1997!) Afterwards, I returned stateside in the knowledge that soon I will be again living in Juarez...

Monday, September 12, 2011

Was feeling it this Sunday morning, so I got dressed and went OUT. Well, to be fair, it wasn't morning - it was more mid-afternoon. Originally, I was taking a stroll over to that notorious porno theater Eva's for a romp of evil, yet as I stomped past Sonny's Bar, I opted for a beer, instead.Sonny's Bar, for those of you out of the loop, is a small, hole-in-the-wall dive located two blocks from my digs, ya dig? Spitting distance from a homeless shelter and a halfway house, the tiny, adobe structure caters to a skanky assortment of alkies, hobo's, excons, and wanna-be gangsters. As a fact, what cinched the decision was as I strolled past the fence that enclosed the patio, I noticed three interesting types lounging under the shabby table umbrella baking in the mid-afternoon heat. The three were sleeping and beerless - three young Latino-types I had seen before running through the streets like Wild Boys.So, I plopped on a stool inside of the bar and as my eyes adjusted to the murky light, the joint was quite full of the previous mentioned clientele. I met up with an old friend from the Mish days named Clint and we shot the shit before he had a meet with some skanky whore elsewhere. Left alone, I ordered another beer and made my way out to the patio.

Patio is probably to good a word - actually, a large, dirt lot speckled with rickety, decaying chairs and a dusty table that seemed to collapse if you leaned against it.(It actually did tip over eventually) As I said, I sat with the three who were there, striking up casual conversation with one that I kinda knew from the bar circuit. The other two was a young Mexican gangster from Chihuahua City, Chihuahua named Pablo and the other a very cute Dominican named Salvador. They both went on about relocating to New York City in a few days time to work for Salvador's father as mechanics. We three talked and joked - Salvador sizing me up (Thought I was a cop) as Pablo dozed on and off in the shade of the bent umbrella. Though the three had no booze, they all were pretty sloshed, so I invited to buy them a round of beer.

My acquaintance - whose name I cannot recall - stated he, they, were hungry. I agreed to walk around the corner to buy some instant soups in lieu of retrieving more cash for beer.

Unfortunately, when I returned, Mom - that ancient hag who runs the bar - caught the three sniffing coke out on the patio and was in process of tossing the three out. But, I talked the cock-blocking old cunt out of it when I ordered beers for them. (They obviously were just lounging around the patio and not buying anything)

We sat at the table with another friend named Ruben - a self-proclaimed Azteca gangster and mooch to the bone - and had actually a good time drinking, joking, and singing to the cholo-beloved oldies warbling from the jukebox. The sexual innuendo between Salvador and I was actually quite pat. I saw in his bloodshot eyes that he knew what the score was, even though the time with his friends were raucous roaring about all the pussy they're going to get once in New York.

A lot of beers later and Salvador followed me outside for a smoke break. He began - in that timid macho way I so adore - making coy advances to my person. When he casually whipped his dork out and took a drunken piss onto the curb, me making comments about his manhood didn't help, either.

"You live near here, guero?" He slurs, nearly tumbling into the street.

I explain I did, just two blocks.

"I wanna stay the night with you." He spat all droopy eyed and fucked up.

I asked him to wait there as I strode to the bathroom to take a much needed piss. As I stood there watching my yellow stream of urine splatter against the thick feces that packed the toilet, I thought, why not? The dude's hot and could be some good kicks.

Saying adios, Salvador and I darted over to my place laughing and stumbling under that baneful moon. Once home, he states he's hungry and I know my cupboards are bare, so I ordered a pizza as he took a hot shower.

We sat in our boxers devouring that pizza like ravaged beasts, drinking tall boys and laughing at Don't Look In The Basement that aired on the Elvira Show. Lights out and in drunken fits of lunging, fondling and sucking, Salvador and I screwed until we passed out, entwined like jungle serpents. Damn, that boy can snore.

Next morning, I make pancakes and coffee as he shyly lounges in rumpled sheets and blankets. We eat, his cell phone goes off and he states he has to split on account of a meet with his ruca. Shaking hands, he jets and I just go on doing what I do...

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Woke up with a start, knowing full well that something was wrong. My lower back hurt, my mouth foul and evil tasting. It didn't get any better when I got online and found out it was Friday. Not that that is bad, it's just when I went to sleep, it was Tuesday night. Did I sleep for two days? Did I have a senior moment and just loose track? Was I abducted by aliens? Hell, I was confused and scared.

I realize I am indecisive and flighty sometimes. Okay, all the time. I had a long thunk about moving to Taiwan and teaching English. Let's go over the facts: I hate kids. I'm tired of moving and starting over, again. I hate kids. The chance of my mental state kicking in and me quitting my job and stuck in a foreign land with absolutely no assistance. I hate kids.Me losing my SSDI benefits. And, had I mentioned that I can't stand being around kids? Too screechy.

So, I had refunded the class I had almost finished and decided not to go to Asia at this time. I needed a beer. I wanted to think and think hard.

There was a person whom I had met via Facebook named Miguel and I asked him if he would care to go out. He text that he was having boyfriend problems and declined. Fair enough, I hightailed it downtown for a sandwich and sat in the plaza eating it...and thinking. I was slightly depressed in the decision not to go to Asia - adventure and excitement awaits! you squeal - yeah, well fuck you. Why don't you go? I'm getting burned out o that shit.

I walked over to a bar by my house called Sonny's and sat out on the patio drinkin' and thinkin'. Sonny's bar is my favorite dive - grimy, dirty, dilapidated. For clientele usually runs the gamut of cholos, junkies, excons, hags, demented elderly. Not bad, no one fucks with me.

So, I'm sitting out back when a group of four black guys and a mole-encrusted white hag burst out. One of the black guys say jokingly, "Ain't nobody out here but that honky." They were trying to size me up, I guess.

So, I retort jokingly back, "Ha...honky? I haven't heard that word in a coon's age." They all laugh and we sit and chat over stupid shit.

My cell phone goes off and it is Miguel stating he wanted to go out anyway. Sure, why not. I met him outside my apartment - I lived just two blocks away - and we whisked over to fag central in downtown El Paso. In the patio of the bar Briar Patch, we sat drank and talked. The beer really hitting us, we decided to go bar hopping. We wobbled over to the Whatever, San Antonio Mining - where well to do fags whirled and gesticulated in squawking stances, yet what really struck me was all the sour looking, dumpy lesbians. Holy crap! They infested the joint!

Back at the Whatever bar as Miguel and I sat out in the patio, a hustler materialized out of thin air and after stealing a cup from another table, sat with us and drank our beer and smoked my cigarettes. He claimed his name was Eddie and weaved his story of woe on how he was stranded and needed a lift. He wasn't bad looking, but I wasn't in the mood and dumped him onto Miguel - in which then it became a lurid, coy game of sexual innuendo and some ravaged transvestite linked coke deal. Whatever.

Well, lust finally overcome Miguel and he rushed Eddie and I out the door, heeded my request at stopping for hamburgers, then dropped my drunken ass off before peeling out for a night of sordid debauchery.I trudged upstairs and devoured my meal before falling into a troubled sleep...

My published works: (Also available on Kindle)

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Class Conscious Poetry.

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